What did Star Trek teach you INCORRECTLY?

[Christopher]

There is no need for money... therefore there is no motivation for most people to do anything. What do citizens do? What motivates them to do it? What would most people really do with themselves if they didn't need to work to live? Star Trek gave people an incorrect view of "what life would be like". Many people would not work unless forced to work.

I don't believe that at all. There are countless people who do volunteer work because they care about their communities and the larger world they live in. There have always been people who devoted themselves to religious callings that entailed lives of poverty and service. And there are plenty of people who work hard on personal hobbies that they get no compensation for. Look at all the Trek and sci-fi fans who put a ton of effort into making professional-quality fan films or fan artwork. The love of one's craft, the pride one takes in creating something or achieving something, can be a more powerful motivator than just increasing the size of the number in one's bank account. And if people are freed from the struggle just to stay alive and feed their families, it would give them the time to pursue their passions. Many people would probably get bored with constant leisure and want to find something constructive to do, some way to challenge themselves.

Besides, who says everyone needs to work? That's an artificial social value arising from capitalism. Through most of humanity's existence, in our hunter-gatherer days, people's everyday lives consisted mostly of leisure (contrary to the "nasty, brutish, and short" myth promulgated in the past before modern anthropology refuted it). Some degree of work was necessary to procure subsistence and build shelter, but it didn't take up that great a percentage of people's time. And they didn't get paid for it either. They did it because they were part of a community and cared about helping it thrive.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Star trek taught me that all my problems could be solved with a deflector dish. Boy was THAT not true.

Star Trek is lost. Discovery is a piece of garbage that wins GLAAD awards instead of Hugo awards. I haven't seen "Picard", but I see this as stagnating instead of moving forward. The Kelvin movies showed me that without Roddenberry's guidance, none of these fools know Star Trek at all.

Yeah because Star trek 100% didn't stagnate or become so creatively bankrupt under the watch of Roddenberry's handpicked successor that it effectively died on television for 15 years. Roddenberry may have started the whole thing but his influence is overstated and viewed through rose-tinted glasses. Roddenberry was so coked out of his brain half the time that he would have destroyed trek if others hadn't have been there rein him in. Those others very rarely get any credit helping shape trek into the powerhouse it became, in spite of Roddenberry.

 

[1001001]

Star trek taught me that al my problems could be solved with a deflector dish. Boy was THAT not true.

Did you re-route main power first?

 

[Discofan]

On second thought, ST didn't teach me anything, correctly or otherwise. I was already a grown-up for quite some time when I started watching it and I didn't expect sci. fi. shows to be informative in any way. Plus (if we're talking about TOS) most if it was outdated and obsolete. I mean the pieces of plastic that were supposed to be records of some kind, the switchboards that were supposed to give sophisticated instructions to computers... The way women were treated as well as sexuality in general. The condescending tone Kirk used to talk to "savages"...

 

[jmidnight_99]

I don't believe that at all. There are countless people who do volunteer work because they care about their communities and the larger world they live in. There have always been people who devoted themselves to religious callings that entailed lives of poverty and service. And there are plenty of people who work hard on personal hobbies that they get no compensation for.

Besides, who says everyone needs to work? That's an artificial social value arising from capitalism. Through most of humanity's existence, in our hunter-gatherer days, people's everyday lives consisted mostly of leisure (contrary to the "nasty, brutish, and short" myth promulgated in the past before modern anthropology refuted it). Some degree of work was necessary to procure subsistence and build shelter, but it didn't take up that great a percentage of people's time. And they didn't get paid for it either. They did it because they were part of a community and cared about helping it thrive.

There are not 'countless" people who do volunteer work. There is a very, very, very VERY small minority of people who do volunteer work, or follow callings of faith. Regardless, please explain to me. In a world where every need is met, what in the world would you volunteer to do? Who can(or would want to) pursue a hobby all day, every day?

The second part of your letter gets worse. Before the industrial revolution, most people were farmers. That was mostly back breaking work. A small minority were skilled craftsmen. People didn't spend most of their time at leisure, they spent their time farming. Men farmed, women took care of the families and the home. Thousands of years before that, we were hunters and spent our time hunting and trying not to be killed or let our families starve. And you have conveniently forgotten the countless wars and battles people fought everywhere. No one spent endless days with nothing to do.

And most naively, you overlook natural tendency. What do human beings do when they have nothing to do? Drink, take drugs and stare at the TV. Few of them volunteer. How many drunk husbands are beating their wives at this very moment? How many people out there are abusing opioids? How many are neglecting their children? Why is that? Because we don't have food replicators?

Someone very smart said this years ago: You need three things to be happy: Someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. This is the nature of being human, and terrible things happen when these things are out of balance.

 

[jmidnight_99]

Star trek taught me that all my problems could be solved with a deflector dish. Boy was THAT not true.

Yeah because Star trek 100% didn't stagnate or become so creatively bankrupt under the watch of Roddenberry's handpicked successor that it effectively died on television for 15 years. Roddenberry may have started the whole thing but his influence is overstated and viewed through rose-tinted glasses. Roddenberry was so coked out of his brain half the time that he would have destroyed trek if others hadn't have been there rein him in. Those others very rarely get any credit helping shape trek into the powerhouse it became, in spite of Roddenberry.

This is the biggest pile of crap that I have ever read on this blog, and I have read a lot of crap.

 

[jmidnight_99]

That was less implausible in the '60s than it is today, since computers then used vacuum tubes that were prone to overheat and blow out if the unit worked itself too hard, e.g. if it got caught in a logic loop. Heck, that can still happen with laptops today, though now they have failsafes that shut them down before too much damage is done.

Computers of the 1960s did not use vacuum tubes. Semiconductors began replacing tubes in computers in the late 50s. The last tube computer was designed in late '62.

Computers cannot go over 100% utilization, regardless of how you try to "confuse" them, and they can't get any hotter than the heat produced by sustained 100% utilization. Some people "overclock" their processors which can lead to damage at sustained 100% utilization, but that isn't what were talking about here. This means if you run software that pegs the CPU, and it doesn't melt, a "logic loop" isn't going to melt it either.

"Logic loops" require AI. You would have to confuse the thing enough where it was constantly contradicting itself.

Here is something more interesting: Microsoft invented an AI chat bot that learned to be racist and sexist.

Tay was an artificial intelligence chatter bot that was originally released by Microsoft Corporation via Twitter on March 23, 2016; it caused subsequent controversy when the bot began to post inflammatory and offensive tweets through its Twitter account, causing Microsoft to shut down the service only 16 hours after its launch. It was soon replaced with "Zo". Zo is reportedly so ridiculously PC that it is worse.

So instead of "logic loops" one could just break an AI computer by teaching it the wrong thing to do.

 

[Christopher]

There are not 'countless" people who do volunteer work. There is a very, very, very VERY small minority of people who do volunteer work, or follow callings of faith.

That's because most people are forced by the capitalist system to work for a living and don't have the freedom to do anything else. If they were liberated from that obligation, who knows how many more of them would be willing to volunteer?

Regardless, please explain to me. In a world where every need is met, what in the world would you volunteer to do? Who can(or would want to) pursue a hobby all day, every day

?

I'd do exactly the same thing I do for pay -- I'd write. I love writing. I love creating. I would gladly do it for the sheer love of the work if I didn't live in a world that forced me to make money to survive.

Thousands of years before that, we were hunters and spent our time hunting and trying not to be killed or let our families starve.

I already explained that that's a popular misconception disproven by modern anthropology and sociology. It's also a myth deeply rooted in sexism and macho pride. Hunting provided only 1/3 of the calories of the pre-agrarian diet. The rest was from gathering, which was done by women and was far less labor-intensive. And hunting wasn't a constant, 9-to-5 grind 7 days a week. A single successful hunt could provide enough meat to last for several days.

And you have conveniently forgotten the countless wars and battles people fought everywhere. No one spent endless days with nothing to do.

This is part of the same myth. War was not remotely as common in pre-agrarian times as the traditional male establishment liked to think it was. There were conflicts, yes, but they were intermittent and constrained in scale, since of course the population of a single hunter-gatherer band is quite small and it can't afford to lose many people. Large-scale warfare didn't come along until civilization started, with larger, more organized populations that had more to fight over. The fact that male aggression no longer had its natural outlet of hunting meant that it was redirected toward pathologies like war, crime, and sexual assault. That kind of violence is not our natural state of being; it's an aberration resulting from the fact that civilization was only invented a paltry few thousand years ago, an evolutionary blink of an eye, and our behavior has not had time to adapt to that changed way of living.

And most naively, you overlook natural tendency. What do human beings do when they have nothing to do? Drink, take drugs and stare at the TV. Few of them volunteer. How many drunk husbands are beating their wives at this very moment? How many people out there are abusing opioids? How many are neglecting their children? Why is that? Because we don't have food replicators?

I find your cynicism pitiable. Why do you like Star Trek if you're so contemptuous of the optimistic humanism it stands for?

Someone very smart said this years ago: You need three things to be happy: Someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. This is the nature of being human, and terrible things happen when these things are out of balance.

Yes, but it is tragically unimaginative and philosophically bankrupt to assume that "something to do" and "something to look forward to" can only possibly mean "making money." In a post-scarcity society where resources were freely abundant and people didn't have to use up most of their time and energy just working a daily grind in a factory or a cubicle, they would find no shortage of things to do and look forward to. In fact, it would pretty much revert us to the way we lived as hunter-gatherers, when most of the food we ate was literally there for the picking without us having to do anything but take it. That was how Homo sapiens existed for at least 300,000 years, while civilization has existed for less than 10,000 years and capitalism an even shorter time than that. It's shortsighted to assume the existence we're accustomed to in our narrow sliver of eternity is the only natural state of being.

Computers of the 1960s did not use vacuum tubes. Semiconductors began replacing tubes in computers in the late 50s. The last tube computer was designed in late '62.

Uhh, the people writing television in the 1960s were more than a few years old. The concept of computers blowing out when worked too hard would have been a matter of recent memory, and would not have instantly disappeared the moment the technology surpassed it. (Hell, look at all the TV and movie writers who still use "retinal scan" even though iris scans have been far more common for the past couple of decades -- sometimes even using "retinal scan" to refer to what's explicitly shown as an iris scan.)

"Logic loops" require AI. You would have to confuse the thing enough where it was constantly contradicting itself.

No, they don't. I'm not talking about conceptual logic, but mathematical logic or programming logic. It's not about conscious thought, it's just about the rules that govern a computer's operations and whether a given operation resolves or becomes trapped in a recursive cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_programming

 

[jmidnight_99]

That's because most people are forced by the capitalist system to work for a living and don't have the freedom to do anything else. If they were liberated from that obligation, who knows how many more of them would be willing to volunteer?


?

I'd do exactly the same thing I do for pay -- I'd write. I love writing. I love creating. I would gladly do it for the sheer love of the work if I didn't live in a world that forced me to make money to survive.




I already explained that that's a popular misconception disproven by modern anthropology and sociology. It's also a myth deeply rooted in sexism and macho pride. Hunting provided only 1/3 of the calories of the pre-agrarian diet. The rest was from gathering, which was done by women and was far less labor-intensive. And hunting wasn't a constant, 9-to-5 grind 7 days a week. A single successful hunt could provide enough meat to last for several days.




This is part of the same myth. War was not remotely as common in pre-agrarian times as the traditional male establishment liked to think it was. There were conflicts, yes, but they were intermittent and constrained in scale, since of course the population of a single hunter-gatherer band is quite small and it can't afford to lose many people. Large-scale warfare didn't come along until civilization started, with larger, more organized populations that had more to fight over. The fact that male aggression no longer had its natural outlet of hunting meant that it was redirected toward pathologies like war, crime, and sexual assault. That kind of violence is not our natural state of being; it's an aberration resulting from the fact that civilization was only invented a paltry few thousand years ago, an evolutionary blink of an eye, and our behavior has not had time to adapt to that changed way of living.




I find your cynicism pitiable. Why do you like Star Trek if you're so contemptuous of the optimistic humanism it stands for?




Yes, but it is tragically unimaginative and philosophically bankrupt to assume that "something to do" and "something to look forward to" can only possibly mean "making money." In a post-scarcity society where resources were freely abundant and people didn't have to use up most of their time and energy just working a daily grind in a factory or a cubicle, they would find no shortage of things to do and look forward to. In fact, it would pretty much revert us to the way we lived as hunter-gatherers, when most of the food we ate was literally there for the picking without us having to do anything but take it. That was how Homo sapiens existed for at least 300,000 years, while civilization has existed for less than 10,000 years and capitalism an even shorter time than that. It's shortsighted to assume the existence we're accustomed to in our narrow sliver of eternity is the only natural state of being.





Uhh, the people writing television in the 1960s were more than a few years old. The concept of computers blowing out when worked too hard would have been a matter of recent memory, and would not have instantly disappeared the moment the technology surpassed it. (Hell, look at all the TV and movie writers who still use "retinal scan" even though iris scans have been far more common for the past couple of decades -- sometimes even using "retinal scan" to refer to what's explicitly shown as an iris scan.)




No, they don't. I'm not talking about conceptual logic, but mathematical logic or programming logic. It's not about conscious thought, it's just about the rules that govern a computer's operations and whether a given operation resolves or becomes trapped in a recursive cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_programming

I'm a computer scientist and engineer, I don't need your Wikipedia links. I could write them. This entire post reads like the childish babble of a frustrated leftie to me, sorry. Like most frustrated lefties, you can't admit when you're wrong, and obviously, you can't admit when you've lost.

Please give me one example how a computer can "become" trapped in a "recursive cycle", "mathematical" or otherwise, and most importantly how this relates to anything we've ever seen on Star Trek. None of this is what you meant in your original post.

. Don't think everyone you respond to is a layperson. Time for more backpedaling now.....

 

[Greg Cox]

Discovery is a piece of garbage that wins GLAAD awards instead of Hugo awards..

Nothing wrong with winning a GLAAD award. That's something to be proud of.

Back OT, I can't come up with anything I learned incorrectly from STAR TREK. It's possible that's because my dad often saw sci-fi movies and TV shows as opportunities to teach me about real science, history, and so on.

"Okay, that was a really fun episode, but, just so you know, that's not how evolution actually works . . . ."

(Did I mention he was a public school teacher his entire life?)

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Back OT, I can't come up with anything I learned incorrectly from STAR TREK. It's possible that's because my dad often saw sci-fi movies and TV shows as opportunities to teach me about real science, history, and so on.

What about environmentalism? I find that Star Trek limits its focus to pollution and the solutions are more often than not technological.

 

[Greg Cox]

What about environmentalism? I find that Star Trek limits its focus to pollution and the solutions are more often than not technological.

Not saying that STAR TREK never got anything wrong in general. Just that I don't personally recall learning anything wrong from STAR TREK. It's not like my entire education came from watching TOS as a kid . . . or that I absorbed everything I ever heard on STAR TREK, uncritically.

I mean it's not like I grew up believing that the Greek god Apollo was actually a space alien.

 

[The Wormhole]

This is a whole pile of <ahem> flawed logic. First of all, Gene Roddenberry never hinted that Star Trek took place in an "alternate universe". Quite the contrary, in fact.

"The 1960s were one of the most volatile times in American history, and Roddenberry saw it as an opportunity to provide audiences with something uplifting and optimistic about the future. It was his vision of where he hoped humanity would someday evolve, learning from the mistakes of its past. In short, he was hoping to somewhat lead by example: Depict the world operating harmoniously, and perhaps people will believe it is possible."

The future. OUR future, not the future of some "alternate universe".

The "alternate universe" BS crept in only after Roddenberry died, when the current generation of Star Trek writers and producers were too chicken shit or unimaginative to create something new. Instead, they rehashed TOS characterless in those ridiculous "Kelvin Universe" movies. Thank God they didn't try to do this instead of TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT.

All fiction takes place in an alternate universe to our own. That's basic Fiction 101. Star Trek is not unique in this regard.

Discovery is a piece of garbage that wins GLAAD awards instead of Hugo awards.

Got a problem with GLAAD awards, huh? Well, I guess my days of taking you seriously are reaching a middle.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

This is the biggest pile of crap that I have ever read on this blog, and I have read a lot of crap.

Roddenberry may have had the idea, but we would have had no Star Trek today if it were not for Lucille Ball. Gene Coon came up with Klingons, the prime directive, the federation and the relationship between Spock and McCoy. In Shatner's own words '‘Gene Coon had more to do with infusing life into Star Trek than anyone else’. So again while Roddenberry had the idea other people made this idea into reality and kept focus while Roddenberry was coming up with inane ideas like Love intructors.

Roddenberry died in 1991 and as a result had nothing to do with any of the 3 spinoffs that came because of TNG. DS9 thrived because it dared to move away from Roddenberry's influence and he would have hated it just like hated TUC. He probably would have hated Voyager and he probably would have hated Enterprise. In fact I remember many a fan saying that Roddenberry was spinning in his grave when Enterprise was on the air.

What I can't stand in this revisionism that is currently taking place in fandom that 90's trek was flawless. It was anything but. Everyone has put out of their minds the hate that Voyager and Enterprise received and how Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were hated for driving the franchise into the ground. But please feel free to explain to me the real reason why it took 15 years for Star Trek to return to television.

 

[MAGolding]

This is a whole pile of <ahem> flawed logic. First of all, Gene Roddenberry never hinted that Star Trek took place in an "alternate universe". Quite the contrary, in fact.

"The 1960s were one of the most volatile times in American history, and Roddenberry saw it as an opportunity to provide audiences with something uplifting and optimistic about the future. It was his vision of where he hoped humanity would someday evolve, learning from the mistakes of its past. In short, he was hoping to somewhat lead by example: Depict the world operating harmoniously, and perhaps people will believe it is possible."

The future. OUR future, not the future of some "alternate universe".

The "alternate universe" BS crept in only after Roddenberry died, when the current generation of Star Trek writers and producers were too chicken shit or unimaginative to create something new....

Here are two proofs that Star Trek happens in an alternate universe:

Proof One:

Gene Roddenberry and other Star trek writers might never have intended to write Star Trek as happening in a alternate universe from ours, but that they did often write Star Trek stories that must happen in alternate universes than ours. As a fan of both history and science fiction, I notice a lot of historical references in science fiction stories and programs such as Star Trek. Many of those historical references are accurate. Many are inaccurate.

Everything that a fictional character says about an exotic setting like the future or another planet must be true. In a story set in the here and now, audience members have many other sources of information about the here and now and don't have to relay on what the fictional characters say for information about the here and now. In a story set in a distant time and/or place, the audience doesn't have those other sources of information, and is forced to rely only on the information in the story. Therefore the writer is obliged to include only accurate information about the setting of his story.

With one exception. A writer can include inaccurate information about his fictional setting in the story if the writer intends for the fact that it is inaccurate to be discovered during the story. If, for example, a character lies or is mistaken, that has to be discovered during the story as part of the planned plot. And in a series of many stories or episodes written by many different writers, every false statement must be planned to be discovered during the plot of the story or episode in which it is made, unless there are plans for it to be discovered later on in a multi episode story arc.

Since the several inaccurate historical references in various Star Trek episodes, from TOS onward, were not revealed as inaccurate during the episodes in which they were made, or in any planned multi-episode story arc, the writers of those episodes could not, if asked about it, claim that they had the characters make those inaccurate historical references as part of a plot plan. Therefore, those inaccurate historical references in various productions starting with TOS must be accurate in the fictional universe of Star Trek, since the only loophole for inaccurate references is closed. And that puts the fictional universe of Star Trek in an alternate universe to our universe. It is impossible for Star Trek to happen in our future, because the past of Star Trek must be different from our past.

Proof Two:

There is another big reason why Star Trek must happen in an alternate universe from ours. If you watch crime dramas about advanced police agencies, you will notice that they have many ways of finding out information about someone from their fingerprints, or DNA, or a security camera image of their face, etc., etc., and most of these methods probably work in real life though probably not as fast or as well.

As an amateur historian and genealogist I know that there is much less information, but still a lot, available about persons living in advanced societies in the last few centuries.

So in, for example, a murder mystery set in an advanced society in the last few hundred years, there would be ways for a reader to find out if people with the names of the victim, the murderer, the detective, and other characters lived in that community at the time of the fictional murder, and to check whether they did so and there were reports of that murder at the time.

It is very easy for people able to do the research to investigate any work of fiction set in advanced societies in the present time, or in the last few hundred years, to find out if the events happened and whether any of the characters ever lived when and where the story is set.

And in most cases those investigations will prove that those stories didn't happen. Works of fiction set in advanced societies in the present or in the last few hundred years are usually falsifiable; they can usually be proved to have never happened.

So if the fictional people places, events, and things in a work of fictional were real in the fictional universe of the story but are not or were not real in our universe, the story must be set in an alternate universe where different people, places, events, and things exist or existed. Thus a very large proportion of all fiction ever written happens in countless alternate universes, though those who claim that all fiction happens in alternate universes may be exaggerating.

A number of different Star Trek productions have future characters traveling to Earth in their past, which is often also in our past as of the present year 2020.

And when Star Trek characters travel to our past and meet persons, places, events and things which exist in that past but can be proved to not exist or have existed in our past, that proves that Star Trek happens to an alternate universe than ours.

But never fear. Fans were not constantly describing Star Trek as happening in an alternate universe back in the days of TOS or for decades afterwards. The vast majority of fans probably believed that Star Trek was set in our future during the first few decades of fandom. In fact, for all that I know, the majority of fans and casual viewers might still believe that Star Trek is set in our future.

So Roddenberry's goal of showing an example of a good future to encourage and give hope to fans and casual viewers was accomplished, even though Roddenberry and other Star Trek creators failed to actually set Star Trek in our future. The message of hope for a better future was spread and possibly contributed to making our present better than it would have been otherwise, and might possibly make our future better, and certainly sometimes gives comfort to viewers.

 

[Forbin]

As an impressionable pre-teen starting to notice girls, Star Trek gave me the impression that it would be possible to get girls a lot more frequently than it turned out. Like, weekly. And they'd fall willingly into the sack with little or no effort. James Bond movies also contributed to this mental problem. Also, I was a teen in the 70s, and all the cool kids at school were having sex. Maybe it was just me.

I also got this back-of-the mind notion that death is never final. People kept getting killed on Trek and then came right back pretty darn soon. Superhero comics were also big contributors to this nonsense. So to this day, when somebody dies, I don't think I react the way a "normal" person would, because there's a notion floating in my mind that they'll be back by the end of the episode. :/

 

[jmidnight_99]

All fiction takes place in an alternate universe to our own. That's basic Fiction 101. Star Trek is not unique in this regard.

Got a problem with GLAAD awards, huh? Well, I guess my days of taking you seriously are reaching a middle.

Yeah... this matters to me.

 

[jmidnight_99]

Here are two proofs that Star Trek happens in an alternate universe:

Proof One:

Gene Roddenberry and other Star trek writers might never have intended to write Star Trek as happening in a alternate universe from ours, but that they did often write Star Trek stories that must happen in alternate universes than ours. As a fan of both history and science fiction, I notice a lot of historical references in science fiction stories and programs such as Star Trek. Many of those historical references are accurate. Many are inaccurate.

Everything that a fictional character says about an exotic setting like the future or another planet must be true. In a story set in the here and now, audience members have many other sources of information about the here and now and don't have to relay on what the fictional characters say for information about the here and now. In a story set in a distant time and/or place, the audience doesn't have those other sources of information, and is forced to rely only on the information in the story. Therefore the writer is obliged to include only accurate information about the setting of his story.

With one exception. A writer can include inaccurate information about his fictional setting in the story if the writer intends for the fact that it is inaccurate to be discovered during the story. If, for example, a character lies or is mistaken, that has to be discovered during the story as part of the planned plot. And in a series of many stories or episodes written by many different writers, every false statement must be planned to be discovered during the plot of the story or episode in which it is made, unless there are plans for it to be discovered later on in a multi episode story arc.

Since the several inaccurate historical references in various Star Trek episodes, from TOS onward, were not revealed as inaccurate during the episodes in which they were made, or in any planned multi-episode story arc, the writers of those episodes could not, if asked about it, claim that they had the characters make those inaccurate historical references as part of a plot plan. Therefore, those inaccurate historical references in various productions starting with TOS must be accurate in the fictional universe of Star Trek, since the only loophole for inaccurate references is closed. And that puts the fictional universe of Star Trek in an alternate universe to our universe. It is impossible for Star Trek to happen in our future, because the past of Star Trek must be different from our past.

Proof Two:

There is another big reason why Star Trek must happen in an alternate universe from ours. If you watch crime dramas about advanced police agencies, you will notice that they have many ways of finding out information about someone from their fingerprints, or DNA, or a security camera image of their face, etc., etc., and most of these methods probably work in real life though probably not as fast or as well.

As an amateur historian and genealogist I know that there is much less information, but still a lot, available about persons living in advanced societies in the last few centuries.

So in, for example, a murder mystery set in an advanced society in the last few hundred years, there would be ways for a reader to find out if people with the names of the victim, the murderer, the detective, and other characters lived in that community at the time of the fictional murder, and to check whether they did so and there were reports of that murder at the time.

It is very easy for people able to do the research to investigate any work of fiction set in advanced societies in the present time, or in the last few hundred years, to find out if the events happened and whether any of the characters ever lived when and where the story is set.

And in most cases those investigations will prove that those stories didn't happen. Works of fiction set in advanced societies in the present or in the last few hundred years are usually falsifiable; they can usually be proved to have never happened.

So if the fictional people places, events, and things in a work of fictional were real in the fictional universe of the story but are not or were not real in our universe, the story must be set in an alternate universe where different people, places, events, and things exist or existed. Thus a very large proportion of all fiction ever written happens in countless alternate universes, though those who claim that all fiction happens in alternate universes may be exaggerating.

A number of different Star Trek productions have future characters traveling to Earth in their past, which is often also in our past as of the present year 2020.

And when Star Trek characters travel to our past and meet persons, places, events and things which exist in that past but can be proved to not exist or have existed in our past, that proves that Star Trek happens to an alternate universe than ours.

But never fear. Fans were not constantly describing Star Trek as happening in an alternate universe back in the days of TOS or for decades afterwards. The vast majority of fans probably believed that Star Trek was set in our future during the first few decades of fandom. In fact, for all that I know, the majority of fans and casual viewers might still believe that Star Trek is set in our future.

So Roddenberry's goal of showing an example of a good future to encourage and give hope to fans and casual viewers was accomplished, even though Roddenberry and other Star Trek creators failed to actually set Star Trek in our future. The message of hope for a better future was spread and possibly contributed to making our present better than it would have been otherwise, and might possibly make our future better, and certainly sometimes gives comfort to viewers.

What?

 

[jmidnight_99]

What I can't stand in this revisionism that is currently taking place in fandom that 90's trek was flawless. It was anything but. Everyone has put out of their minds the hate that Voyager and Enterprise received and how Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were hated for driving the franchise into the ground. But please feel free to explain to me the real reason why it took 15 years for Star Trek to return to television.

The only revisionism exists in your head. People didn't watch TOS when it was on prime time. It was cancelled. And, then it became a hit in syndication. It remained so throughout the 70s and 80s, achieving cult classic status. During that time it also developed an immense influence on popular culture. So then, why was it cancelled in the first place, and why did it take 10 years for Star Trek to return in 1979 in the first place? Why was it revered for decades after being cancelled?

No one has "put anything out of their mind". People see things in a different light upon closer examination, or perhaps familiarization. TOS was a flop on primetime, TOS became a cultural phenomenon in syndication. This isn't revisionism.

There are all sorts of reasons someone might not like a show. I refused to watch TNG for years because it wasn't TOS, and who the hell were these new people on the Enterprise calling themselves Star Trek? Voyager had a strong female captain and a black Vulcan. I can remember this turning people off at the time, including me. Who the hell wants to watch a female captain? Where's Kirk? Spock? McCoy? Well, attitudes change, we stop acting like children mad at TNG for daring to compete with TOS, and we realize a female captain can be Star Trek, and good Star Trek at that.

What we don't do (hopefully) is act like the same stubborn spoiled child who harps on the same tantrum, post after post after post after post. After post. It's embarrassing.

Star Trek has not "returned to television". CBS has exploited the franchise to launch it's web streaming service. Like most streaming series, it is limited to half-seasons. A new show was in development a full 5 years before it broadcast, and was intended specifically to lure viewers to All Access.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

The only revisionism exists in your head. People didn't watch TOS when it was on prime time. It was cancelled. And, then it became a hit in syndication. It remained so throughout the 70s and 80s, achieving cult classic status. During that time it also developed an immense influence on popular culture. So then, why was it cancelled in the first place, and why did it take 10 years for Star Trek to return in 1979 in the first place? Why was it revered for decades after being cancelled?

No one has "put anything out of their mind". People see things in a different light upon closer examination, or perhaps familiarization. TOS was a flop on primetime, TOS became a cultural phenomenon in syndication. This isn't revisionism.

There are all sorts of reasons someone might not like a show. I refused to watch TNG for years because it wasn't TOS, and who the hell were these new people on the Enterprise calling themselves Star Trek? Voyager had a strong female captain and a black Vulcan. I can remember this turning people off at the time, including me. Who the hell wants to watch a female captain? Where's Kirk? Spock? McCoy? Well, attitudes change, we stop acting like children mad at TNG for daring to compete with TOS, and we realize a female captain can be Star Trek, and good Star Trek at that.

What we don't do (hopefully) is act like the same stubborn spoiled child who harps on the same tantrum, post after post after post after post. After post. It's embarrassing.

Star Trek has not "returned to television". CBS has exploited the franchise to launch it's web streaming service. Like most streaming series, it is limited to half-seasons. A new show was in development a full 5 years before it broadcast, and was intended specifically to lure viewers to All Access.

I'm not sure why you're bringing TOS into this as I never mentioned TOS. However to answer your questions, People may not have watched it during first run, but that had a lot to do with the studio and also the fact that it was airing on a friday night. Re-runs which gave more people a chance to watch it and also the general rising popularity of sci-fi in the 70's is why Star Trek got it's second wind. I don't think TOS is the best example to use as it has never been subject to the same criticism that later series had to endure and creative fatigue wasn't a contributing factor to it's short run and lack of popularity. Which to link back to my original argument, was the main contributing factor to the end of 90's Trek.

And yes revisionism is in full force when people claim not to care about the faults of a previous series but willingly lambast the latest addition to the franchise for doing the same thing. Case in point, the Klingons. There was outrage when they were redesigned in TMP which people eventually got over. When Discovery did it, it was the end of the world. And segments of the fanbase are failing to apply the same criterion to Discovery that they do to other series.

You said yourself that you got over the issues that you had with previous series, so why can you not apply the same logic to Discovery?

And CBS isn't exploiting anything, they are using a product which they OWN to build a streaming service. That is just business. Never forget that Star Trek was first and foremost about making a man money, this is no different.

Also, what the issue with Discovery receiving a GLAAD award? If it's because of what I think it is, then quite honestly that is a detestable attitude for a Trek fan to have.